


My Love

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst to Fluff, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Human/Vampire Relationship, Immortality, Vampire Queen - Freeform, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21987385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Fic inspired by Matt Cardle’s cover of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’.~~~~~“I overheard Adrian talking to Serafine about how he can’t even remember the names of some of his lovers, let alone their faces. He’s much younger than you so I— I don’t know.” She was doing everything that she could to avoid looking her in the eyes, the nervous habit of fiddling with the ring in the shape of a small heart that she wore on the middle finger of her right hand happening in full force. “I just...wondered, I guess. You’re going to live a lot longer than I am, so even though I know I’ve only got one life and don’t plan on using it just to breathe, that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll move on one day. I just wanted to know if you’d ever forget about me.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Swann, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 82





	My Love

“Kamilah?,” Anastasia said. The sound of the mortal’s voice drew the ancient vampire’s attention away from her computer screen and toward the couch that sat in her office’s sitting area, where Anastasia was sat patiently waiting on her to finish her work.

“I’ll be ten more minutes—“

“No, it’s not that. I’m chill so take as long as you need.” 

“Are you sure? You seem...off.”

“Off? Off how?”

“You’re wearing all black, for starts.”

“And?”

“Happy people don't wear all black, darling.”

“Black is kind of a fictional vampire colour, right?”

Something about her voice made Kamilah sit up a little straighter and listen, even from all the way across the room she could hear how erratically her heart was beating. Her sweet voice was soft as ever, a tone she was getting used to and this was because the last couple of months it had started to come at her incredibly often. Even if she hadn’t been able to hear her heart her voice alone would have conveyed her sudden unease.

For several stomach-twisting moments, she just watched her and ran through her mental list of tips to being a good girlfriend: think before you talk (anything and everything could potentially be an insult to a woman in a bad mood; when in doubt, she would say nothing), be nice, sitting on hands would prevent fidgeting and could feel good, eye contact was important, smiles were important too (but without too much teeth, that would be creepy), thinking about work was the worst thing she could do when Anastasia needed her, she couldn’t let herself talk about work, she would say please and thank you, and apologise with feeling if she was the cause of her dour mood... first with her words and then with her tongue.

Some people buried their fears in food, she knew, and some in booze, and some in planning elaborate engagements and weddings and other life events that took up every spare moment of their time, in case unpleasant thoughts intruded. But for Anastasia and for Kamilah, whenever reality, or the grimmer side of reality, threatened to invade, they always seemed to turn to whichever book happened to be within arms reach. The fact that Anastasia was reading one of Kamilah’s mind numbing coffee table books about obscure architecture was enough to let her know that she was worried. Books had always been her solace when she was sad about anything; her friends when she was lonely. They had mended her heart when it was broken, and encouraged her to hope when she had no reason to.

In short, they both self-medicated with books.

“Something is troubling you,” she declared.

“I just...I was wondering if you’ll remember me.”

“What?”

“You know, after I’m gone. Will you remember me a thousand years from now?”

Kamilah’s heart clenched in her chest and she immediately got up from behind her desk. When she sat down beside Anastasia the first thing she did was caress her face in the palms of both of her hands and pull her in to press a kiss on her forehead. Many a war had been fought over a face like hers. Many men and women would work themselves into the ground for it, go down on their knees and beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it. However, she knew how exceedingly rare it was for such beauty to be mirrored on the inside as it was with Anastasia. She was by far the most beautiful person that Kamilah had ever known.

“Where is this coming from?,” she prodded.

Anastasia shrugged and was so uncharacteristically miserable that a few tears began trickling down her face. It wasn't like she wasn't capable of happiness but when she got herself into these funks it was almost as if she held herself away from it just the slightest bit. Like for some baffling reason she felt undeserving of it, mistrustful of it, and the unfairness of that made her want to shake some sense into her stubborn head.

“You know I adore you. So much, I'm scared I'll never feel this again with anyone else," she said, quietly.

Anastasia covered her face as she began to cry harder. "I'm scared you will.”

Their bodies lined up next to each other in that perfect way as Kamilah wrapped her arms around her, and she pressed her cheek to hers like she was savoring being close to her. She knew without being told that Anastasia ached so badly to be held it felt like a sickness had invaded her muscles and bones. As usual, only Kamilah’s arms could provide her with comfort. Warm. Content. Safe in her arms that could flip over a car just as easily as they could cradle her. The vampire hugged her tighter. She was bigger and far stronger, and she would protect her with everything she had.

“Please, don’t cry,” she whispered in her ear. “If something is wrong, tell me so I can fix it. Please.”

Anastasia hugged her tight. “I overheard Adrian talking to Serafine about how he can’t even remember the names of some of his lovers, let alone their faces. He’s much younger than you so I— I don’t know.” She was doing everything that she could to avoid looking her in the eyes, the nervous habit of fiddling with the ring in the shape of a small heart that she wore on the middle finger of her right hand happening in full force. “I just...wondered, I guess. You’re going to live a lot longer than I am, so even though I know I’ve only got one life and don’t plan on using it just to breathe, that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll move on one day. I just wanted to know if you’d ever forget about me.”

“You truly have no clue, do you?," she whispered. It was a subject she didn’t like to think about, let alone talk about. In a perfect world she would turn Anastasia and keep her forever, regardless of the dangers or politics that surrounded turning mortals into vampires. But she knew that being the one to suggest or in anyway coerce Anastasia into consenting was, perhaps, the single most selfish thing that she could do. 

Immortality was not as rosy as certain authors had encouraged people to believe that it was. Time. It was the starkest truth of life — either you didn't have enough or then it went on and on. Not everyone got the famed happily every after. Life was real and sometimes it was ugly and unfair and the only option was to learn how to cope.

The girl had come into her life suddenly. You find the most important things in life so suddenly it’s almost blinding. And it was almost funny how ordinary those extraordinary moments felt, in hindsight. Deep down Kamilah knew that she wanted Anastasia, exactly the way she was at that very moment, to be the way she’d be the day after and in fifty years. And she wanted Anastasia to want her enough to deal with whatever happened. She couldn’t even promise she would be okay, should she ask to be turned. But without her, Kamilah knew she would never be okay. She wanted to tell her as much but she knew that to do so would be to influence her choice and would be the most despicable thing she could do, so she swallowed her words.

Keeping quiet was her way of fighting for her love, the way that no one had fought for her before she had turned. Keeping quiet about what she desired was giving Anastasia her love, unconditionally. It was fighting for her. When you loved someone the way she loved the mortal, you fight for them in every way you know how. Sometimes not speaking said more than all the words in the world.

She was certain her silence about how much she wanted to turn her was the right choice to make, despite how part of her mind was screaming that it felt wrong. That Anastasia needed to know how Kamilah felt. But Kamilah knew that sometimes you have to choose between a bunch of wrong-feeling choices and no right-feeling ones. You just have to choose which ‘wrong’ choices feels the least wrong in the moment. However, she’d also learned that the heart can't be told when and who and how it should love. Even being as old as she was, silencing her big bleeding heart with a single command was damn near impossible. The heart did whatever the hell it wanted to do. The only thing she could control was whether she gave her life and her mind the chance to catch up to her heart.

“No clue about what?,” Anastasia whispered back.

"You told me I was home to you. You’re home to me, too.” As gently as she could manage, she pushed long strands of her prized ginger hair out of her face, caressing her with all the love and tenderness she had within her. “I haven’t had a home since Lysimachus left for war, not really. I like the one I found in you and I will never forget it. No matter what. I could not dream a better you.” 

Oh God, Kamilah cringed, God. She couldn’t quite believe she had just said that, having started out so well. But staring into Anastasia’s blue eyes, she realised she had in fact just said that. And it was in many ways, so sweet, so unexpected but clearly so welcomed by the mortal that Kamilah’s breath arrested and all she could do was continue staring at her. Those eyes were impossible for her to look away from. The second Kamilah had opened her eyes and really looked at her for the first time, she had known right away. She was either going to be the death of her...or she was going to be the one who finally brought her back to life.

The vampire’s heart pounded against her chest. Not because she was nervous. Not even because she wanted her worse that she’d ever wanted anyone before her. It was pounding against her chest because she realised she’d never been so sure about the rest of her life than she was with Anastasia in her arms. This girl was the rest of her life, whatever she chose.

She wasn’t done. “A better girlfriend, a better companion, a better queen. Not even in a dream could I create better than you.” She dropped her brow and rested her forehead against hers. “I know your heart's involved in this and I've never, not once in all the time you've known me, given you the idea that I won't handle it with care...have I?”

“No,” Anastasia murmured. 

“You missed it when it happened so I’ll clue you in. That one night not long after you began working for Adrian that you were struggling to adjust to a nocturnal schedule, around the time you fell asleep against me on this very couch, you became mine. Belonging to me doesn’t mean I’ll make you do anything, it just means I consider you mine for as long as this lasts. It means I protect you, it means I take care of you. For another woman, it might mean something different. Don’t confuse me with another woman, alright? You captured my heart without even trying. I could never forget you. Never.”

Anastasia nodded and lay a gentle hand on top of Kamilah’s, holding her palm against her rosy cheek. “I think about becoming like you sometimes but I’m not sure if it’s something that I want for myself, or if it’s something that I’m thinking about because I’m scared of everyone I love outliving and forgetting about me.”

“You don’t have a selfish bone in your body, but in thinking about this you have to be completely and utterly selfish. Think only of yourself.” She let out a slow and shaky breath in an attempt to steady herself. Sometimes the people you loved didn't know what was best for them and you had to be their good sense, she knew, but it never seemed to get any easier. “Unlike the rest of us, if you eventually turn, it will hopefully be after a well informed and long thought out choice.”

“Would you turn me?”

“If that is what you desire.”

“Don’t you want me to turn?”

“Anastasia,” she sighed. “What did I just say?”

The mortal sighed and pouted a little. She literally couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know how to be only semi-interested in something. She was either indifferent...or so obsessed that she was incapable to listening to reason. Typical redhead behaviour. “I know, I just— You’ve been hurt so many times and I don’t like thinking about how losing me would hurt you, that’s all. Thinking that something I decided could potentially break your heart is really, really, fucking scary.”

“As is thinking that you would make this choice purely for my sake and then wind up resenting me for it.”

“I don’t want you to ever regret loving me.”

“I will never regret you. Ever. Don’t even say that. When I touch you, I’m touching you because I want to make you happy. When I kiss you, I’m kissing you because you have the most incredible mouth I’ve ever seen and you know I can’t not kiss it. And when I make love to you — I’m doing exactly that. I’m making love to you because I’m in love with you, and I’ll love you forever. Even if there ever comes a time when I can’t.”

“If you thought of all the tiny things that divert your path one way or another, some good, some bad, you’d never do anything ever again. And some people don’t. Some people go through life not really deciding to do much at all, not wanting to, always too fearful of the consequences to try something new. Of course, that in itself is also actually a decision—“

“No, Anastasia, no more nonsense out of this sweet mouth. I’m not going to listen to it and I’ll work as hard as I’m capable of working — I don’t care if it takes years — to make you stop thinking it and provide you with enough information to make this choice purely for yourself. Losing you would be agonising but so would watching you suffer through a never ending depression.” She pressed another kiss to her forehead. “Whatever you decide, I will be thankful for however long we are able to spend together, whether that turns out to be centuries or merely an average mortal lifespan. But I need you to be secure in the fact that every second I spend with you it becomes more and more clear that you were made for me. A gift I don’t deserve, didn’t earn, but I’m not giving it back. Ever. My heart is yours.”

The mortal nodded and gave her a gentle smile, and Kamilah could hear her erratic heartbeat begin to slow. “You’ve gotten really good at that.”

“At what?”

“Calming me down and setting me straight without whipping out the fangs.”

Kamilah huffed and made the split decision to bare her teeth, knowing that the red irises and elongated fangs would amuse Anastasia. She may have been the only person alive or dead who wasn’t at all frightened when she nipped at her neck and held onto her tightly. Kamilah would never admit just how much that trust meant to her or the lengths she would go to in order to preserve it, but she knew Anastasia was aware of it. Lysimachus had once told her that when you find a woman who’s worth it...you spoil her rotten. You let her know she’s precious, not convince her of it, because it’s not about convincing. It’s about understanding it’s just true.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you but you’ve mellowed me considerably,” Kamilah murmured against the giggling mortal’s neck. “I like who I am with you.”

“I like who you are with me, too.”

Playfully, she scraped her fangs against the pulse point just below her ear and then leaned back to get a good look at her. “If someone like you, someone as unbelievably beautiful as you, as crazy and sweet as you, filled with attitude and courage with her heart always in the right place, in a lot of right places even though her head normally isn’t…if someone like you shares her bed with me, then that must say something about me. Maybe I’m not as terrible as I think I am sometimes. I loved you long before you took your first breath on this earth because that was my fate but you made me love you because you’re just...you.”

Anastasia leaned in and kissed her lips. “I love you, Kamilah, you’re the only woman who’s ever had that from me and you’re the only one who ever will. I swear I will spend every last breath thanking you for allowing yourself to love me back.”

Kamilah knew that forgiveness was beautiful and it felt good when someone gave you that gift. But it was one thing for someone you wronged to forgive you. It was another to forgive yourself. With Anastasia’s love she had found the courage to forgive herself for all she had done, to finally learn the lessons that were there to be learned from each one of her misgivings. The hurt had been so big and so seemingly endless, the only thing that had been powerful enough to get her through was love. Every step, every breath, every second she had wandered the earth, she was thankful for, no matter how fucked up or whacked or hard or good, because cause all that she had gone through led her to Anastasia.

She never could have anticipated that taking a mortal as her lover would change so much, would heal so much. She loved Anastasia, Anastasia loved her, they were connected in ways that Kamilah hadn’t realised possible. It was what happened when two people became one: they no longer only shared love. They also shared all of the pain, heartache, sorrow, and grief. What they had was so beautiful and that’s all it would ever be, regardless of anything else. For eternity. Until the end of days. Until the sun fell from the sky, all she and Anastasia would share was beauty. She was her perfect fit, made to be there. A perfect match, made to be together. 

Made to be there. 

Made to be together. 

It wasn’t perfect, none of it — with the constant danger and their drastically different lifespans — but it was bliss. It was a fairytale. And even people like Kamilah Sayeed needed to believe in fairytales from time to time. Even the perfectly flawed ones. Maybe especially flawed ones. And they needed to believe in them always.

— fin.


End file.
